Hoxton Hall might have been built a hundred-odd
years ago as a vaudeville venue, but it lends itself rather well to the
cause of rock 'n' roll.

Tonight, Vuvuvultures launch their
album amid an assortment of attractions, including vintage video games
on the balcony, hi-fi headphone demos in the bar...and bands in the big
room..

Fat White Family count as an assortment of attractions in themselves. A
gang of half-naked young chaps, making a ramshackle sleazoid noise, they're
more messy than edgy but they have a certain falling-about charm.

Their
songs are ragged, low-slung romps, the band a flurry of spindly limbs.
Somehow, they keep the proceedings on the right side of chaos, although
it teeters on the brink more than once. As the keyboard falls off its stand
and the guitarist stretches out on the floor as if he's decided to take
a nap mid-set, while his colleagues gurn and flail around him, it all turns
into a bit of a scrabble. But it's a nice scrabble, and - just about -
a controlled scrabble.

Slaves manage to be unsettlingly intense
during their songs, and disarmingly boys-next-door between them. They're
a duo of guitar and stand-up drums, and you can imagine them down the youth
club, trying to put a band together, but never quite managing to assemble
a full line-up because nobody wants to play with the weirdos.

So here they
are, just the two of them, battering and hollering through their songs
of small-town angst and suburban stress. The drummer lays into his kit
as if it's just spilt his pint, while the guitarist grabs and snatches
at his six strings as if he's the hooker in a rugby scrum.

But just as
we're starting to feel a little apprehensive at all this laddish rowdiness,
the boys take time out to explain the stories behind their songs - 'Where's
Your Car, Debbie?' being a particularly convoluted tale of misadventure
involving monsters in the Kent countryside. Slaves manage to be oddly endearing,
in a boisterous boys from
the 'burbs kind of way, even as their music churns aggressively. Youth
club weirdos for the win.

Turning up the showbiz in an outfit that seems
to be mostly staps, Harmony Boucher, Vuvuvultures' vocalist, is the visual
focus of a band that otherwise keeps things resolutely dressed down.
In a way it's an incongrous image, for on the face of it you'd expect
her to be fronting some sort of cyberfetish industrial band at the Slimelight
rather than delivering bursts of off-kilter pop in a 19th century pleasure
palace.

But that's Vuvuvultures: tying all
the tangents in a knot, and presenting us with an audio-visual package
that works because of its off-kilterness, rather than in spite of it.

And
yes, Vuvuvultures are a pop group, rather than a rock band. They're like
a collision between XTC and Transvision Vamp - the unexpected angles and
wayward catchiness of the music rubbing up against a certain unconventional
sense of glam.

Tonight 'I'll Cut You' has a bittersweet
sway, 'Stay Still' galumphs along merrily, as if it's just got out of school
on the last day of term, while 'Cntrl Alt Mexicans' is a killer
bump 'n' grind. It's all delivered with a well-judged combination of gauche
glamour and knowing savoir-faire, as Harmony stomps around the stage in
her straps and boots, while the band scare up chunky rhythms from the air.

Words and photos in Nemesis To Go by Michael Johnson are licenced under Creative Commons. You may copy and distribute this material, or derivations of it, provided that you give a credit to Michael Johnson and a link to Nemesis To Go. Where material from other sources is used, copyright remains with the original owners. All rights in the name 'Nemesis To Go' and the 'N' logo are retained.